This article appeared in yesterday's Asbury Park Press: "Theology used to justify opposition to women priests," in their weekly religion column.

It's an interesting article no matter what you think about the ordination of women, ecumenism, the episcopacy, or the Catholic Church.

Protestants who forbid women clergy don't usually cite Jesus' choice of male apostles but rather 1 Timothy 2:12 ("I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent").

The Pontifical Commission said this scripture perhaps referred "only to certain concrete situations and abuses," not all women anytime and everywhere.

I agree with the PBC on that interpretation: this verse is overapplied within Protestantism.